Tegan and Sara Direct

I’ve always found it interesting when musicians take control of the frame around their own work. Tegan and Sara directing their own videos makes perfect sense—they’ve spent twenty years refining a visual identity that’s unmistakable, and handing that off to someone else would be like asking a stranger to finish your sentences. The thing about them as directors is that there’s no distance between the aesthetic and the song. It’s not decoration layered over the music; it’s the same thought expressed two ways at once. The imagery is stark and direct, sometimes deliberately awkward, rarely trying to be beautiful in the traditional sense. That matters, especially for queer artists who’ve built their whole career on refusing to soften themselves for anyone. Their videos aren’t afraid to sit in discomfort, to let the frame hold too long on a feeling that makes you slightly nervous. It’s the same thing they do in a song.